


for not by strength does man prevail

by elenathehun



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-21
Updated: 2014-05-21
Packaged: 2018-01-26 00:13:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1667645
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elenathehun/pseuds/elenathehun
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve is still dumb enough to think that being strong means you can solve the world's problems.  His friends know better.</p>
            </blockquote>





	for not by strength does man prevail

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Nefhiriel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nefhiriel/gifts).



When Steve is 16, it becomes clear he's never going to grow out of being sick. That's about the time that Steve and his ma start...well, fighting isn't the best word for it, but the Rogers household is noticeably chillier whenever Bucky visits. Steve spends a lot of time drawing bleak winter landscapes and sad leafless trees.

Bucky doesn't say anything because getting in the middle of an intra-Rogers contretemps is more than his life is worth. They're private people, and each of 'em is too much like the other to give in - on what, Bucky doesn't know, but if he took a guess, it was about Steve's future. Mrs. Rogers worries a lot about what Steve is going to do for a living when he leaves school and who's going to take care of him when she's gone, and Bucky can't think of anything more likely to get Steve's dander up than his own mother doubting his ability to survive.

The hell of it is, Bucky can sort of see her point, although not for the same reasons. She’s got herself hung up on the fact that Steve is never going to be anything other than small and sickly, but this isn’t the old country, and no one lives and dies by what they can get from the field anymore. Steve’s not _simple_ , thank God, so Bucky has full faith he’ll find something that uses that big old brain of his and come up on top. No, Bucky worries about the other injuries Steve might bear, the kind of hurts a person as straight-out _good_ as Steve will suffer in a world that just doesn’t measure up. 

Bucky tries to figure out a way to tell Mrs. Rogers that she doesn’t need to worry about Steve in that way, but it doesn’t matter – she dies next summer, living through the flu, but not the pneumonia that came afterwards. Steve is fine, didn’t even catch a sniffle, which hopefully put Mrs. Rogers at ease before she passed. Bucky hopes so, because Bucky has a hell of time getting the stiff-necked idiot to accept some help and stay with him and his folks until he gets his diploma and can actually, you know, make some money. 

XXXXXXXXXXXX 

It turns out Bucky is right, both about Steve’s ability to land feet first and about his ability to let the crueler parts of the world pass him by. Every time Bucky ducks into an alley to pull Steve’s bacon out of the fryer, he swears _this is the last goddamn time Rogers_ , and it never is, because Steve thinks he’s a good person, and he can’t bear to let him down.

He still tries to talk to Steve about it – god, the irony of Bucky Barnes telling someone that there are better ways to solve the world’s problems than with your fists, his kid sister about dies laughing the one time she hears his lecture. _The most powerful man in the world uses a wheelchair_ , he tells Steve. _Are you seriously going to tell me the only way you can change the world is by getting mashed to a pulp every time someone looks at you wrong?_

Steve tells him that Roosevelt may need a wheelchair, but you sure wouldn’t know that by looking at the press photos _which isn’t THE GODDAMN POINT, STEVE._

And then war breaks out in Europe, and suddenly the only way to solve the world’s problems is with your fists.  


XXXXXXXXXX 

After the little SHIELD tete-a-tete at Fury’s grave, Steve and Sam drive up I-95 to New York. Traffic is even more foul than usual, but the drive is still easy; Sam spends most of it monopolizing the stereo and introducing him to yet more music. Steve appreciates it, he really does. 

Somewhere around the fourth hour, Hill emails them a preliminary analysis of what Stark’s R+D department has got on Hydra’s East Coast sites. They’re going to have her support while they look for Bucky, but there’s a price and it’s one that Steve is happy to pay, as long as it doesn’t interfere with his search. He owes HYDRA a lot of things, and he always pays his debts. It’s probably a good thing Sam is driving, actually, because Steve is all for doubling back and hitting the Newark site before they get to Stark Tower. Sam is not as enthused.

“I don’t know if anyone has ever told you this,” Sam says drily, “but there are more ways to make your point than busting in, guns blazing, shield at the ready. They may be there; they may be gone. All I know is that we have no real way to handling it, since _we don’t have any weapons or backup_. How the hell did you survive the Second World War? Because I know the Howling Commandoes were smarter than this.”

And even though Sam is a new friend, one of the only new friends he’s made since he woke up, his tone is so intimately pissed-off and familiar, Steve smiles involuntarily. “Yeah, well, you can thank Bucky for that. He was always telling me to use the brain god gave me.”

Sam just looks out the windshield at the road ahead. “Maybe I will. I’m beginning to see I’ll need all the help I can get sitting on you and your stupid ideas.”

**Author's Note:**

> Ugh this is the first thing I've written in two years, and it felt like trying to hatch a stone. My writing muscles are weak :( Also, I hate this summary a lot.
> 
> Character study written for [this prompt](http://avengersgen.livejournal.com/3373.html?thread=347181#t347181) on avengersgen:
> 
>  
> 
> _Not being very athletic, it can be kind of humiliating to be in a group of VERY athletic people. I know their "ribbing" (and alternately their "You're doing great!"s) are all well-meant. But that doesn't mean it's any easier to bike 30 miles when you feel like you're dying, and keep smiling and joking because you don't want to be pathetic (even if you actually are very pathetic). Just because I'm always one of the worst at sports, and I've learned to laugh about it instead of crying, doesn't mean I actually RELISH it. XD_
> 
> _The point of this self-pitying anecdote? I was thinking about scrawny!Steve (MY HERO), and how tired he must have gotten at times of being condescended to. Even Bucky's teasing/kindness must've gotten old some days when he knows he's physically pathetic, but mentally he just can't give up. I identify with that feeling so much (even if chronic back problems/just being petite-sized and commonly mistaken for a child don't really compare to how frail he was)._
> 
>  
> 
> _I'd just really like to see Steve reach his limit of how much being-kindly-patted-on-the-back he can take. Inside, he's tough and strong, and he's just so tired of people assuming he's pathetic - and he's even more tired of BEING pathetic._
> 
>  
> 
> _No Bucky-being-a-jerk, though, please. I think Bucky would catch on pretty quick, and recognize how hard it must be (and, h/c addict that I am, it would be love to see him find the right words to cheer Steve up and remind him that his worth isn't about physical strength)._
> 
>  
> 
> _/cathartic prompt_
> 
>  
> 
> Title is from I Samuel 2:9, the Jewish Society Publication Bible translation.


End file.
